For the former, one verse that is cited is, predictably, Gal. 3:28 (p. 91). Now, I wish these fellows would write the following statement on a flashcard and memorize it: If Gal 3:28 proves that interracial marriage is okay, then it also proves that homosexual marriage is okay. It may be that miscegenation is permitted, and of course, homosexual marriage is not marriage at all, but you can’t prove that from Gal 3:28. By itself, that verse could certainly be used by homosexuals if it can be used to support miscegenation. The same exegetical mistake would be committed by both parties. The point of Gal 3:28 is not to overthrow all differences between the sexes, and thus it is also not to overthrow all differences, if there are any, between the races.

They continue: “Malachi 2:15 declares that an important purpose of marriage is to produce godly offspring…In addition, the man and woman must be one spiritually so they can fulfill the command to produce godly offspring…  According to the Bible then, which of the impending marriages in the illustration does God counsel against entering into?” (p. 91). The chart on the following page shows three couples:

1. A Negro and an Aryan, both Christian
2. An Aryan and an Oriental, neither Christian
3. Two Aryans, one Christian and one non-Christian.

(Note the Aryans as common denominator in all three scenarios. I wonder if in the Chinese edition of the book the targeted race will be changed.)

“The answer is obvious — the third one.”

But if that is obvious on the basis of the “godly seed” argument, why is not the marriage of two non-Christians equally questionable, since these have no purpose to produce a godly offspring? Why is the second scenario not also highlighted as sinful?  Is there a perverse neutrality principle at work in their not seeing #2 as a violation of their stated premise? It is as if the unbeliever gets a bye on the commands of God.

(There is even something oddly perverse about the language used here, starting with the expression, “God counsels.” I thought God commanded. I didn’t think he merely gave counsel.)

Presumably, the Hamites believe that all three scenarios describe valid marriages once contracted. That is, I take it that, whatever sin might have been involved at stages leading to any of three scenarios, the status quo would not be grounds for annulment on their view. The only question then is whether sin would be involved in entering into any of the three.

If there are other principles of marriage that must also be understood, such that one might conclude that scenario #2 is not inherently sinful, then one would need to check to make sure that those missing principles would not have something to qualify scenario #1 as well. If the only principle at work was the desire to “have a godly seed,” scenario #2 would fail just as quickly as #3. Ken Ham instinctively recognized his mistake at a gut level, yet utterly failed to see that his argument was therefore simply inadequate. In their haste to conclude from a carefully selected biblical principle, they have clearly stepped into a major non-sequitor, or they are affirming that unbelievers are not required to obey the law of God.

The eagerness to ratify political correctness leads to a suspension of thought, and a suppression of sanctified instinct. It reminds me of a Board that I twice sat on, which, upon the agitation of one busybody on the Board,  became concerned about a “dangerous outbreak” of opposition to miscegenation — well at any rate, a fellow out in the hills that demurred from miscegenation had once visited the busybody’s church. This created a crisis that had to be addressed immediately. The catalog could wait, finding ways to recruit new students could wait — everything could wait until this dire heresy would be stamped out.  (Geneva could not even be used in the institution’s name, because someone — why, is anyone’s guess — might associate it with a website known as “Little Geneva” that the busybody found objectionable.) So, in fourteen minutes, they proposed, debated, and passed a motion defining a new heresy, in these words: “The Board of [such and such] denounces the Kinist core idea that miscegenation is a sin, and affirms that the only Biblical limitation for Christian marriage is that believers marry only in the Lord, I Cor 7:39.” From the context, it was clear that by “in the Lord,” they meant “another Christian” — for, if  “in the Lord” is meant to designate “all relevant biblical principles,”  it would be question-begging so far as settling the miscegenation question — then all the biblical data would have needed to be scanned to make sure, and this can surely not be done in 14 minutes; and it was not done. The context is clearly, that only the religious faith of the person functions as a norm when choosing a mate.

They never noticed that according to their new definition, you can marry your mother as long as she is a Christian!

Such is the result of a generation that feels the magnetism of the politically correct, and acts in haste born of fear.

There are a variety of considerations that might lead fathers or tribal leaders to forbid their daughters to be wooed by tribal outsiders.

1. When it comes to inter-racial marriage, there is a distinct asymmetry between the possible pairings as to desire. There are far more Aryan men that successfully woo Oriental girls than Orientals that avoid being spurned by Aryan girls. There are one or two orders of magnitude more Negroes interested in Aryan girls than Aryans that desire Negresses. This means that, when inter-racial marriage is permitted on a wide-spread basis, there is one sex of each tribe that is the competitive loser — some members of which must either become more aggressive in a way that should not be necessary, or give up. Namely, Orientals vis-à-vis Aryans, Aryans vis-à-vis Negroes, and Negresses vis-à-vis Aryan girls.

Why should this be considered a good or healthy situation? Why should one half of a tribe be put at a competitive disadvantage in the marriage market?

Why should Korean elders insist that their girls may be wooed by Vietnamese? Who would have thought of it?

Why would a Negro seek to seduce or marry an Aryan princess, when there is an ample quantity of Negresses eager to receive his advances? What possible motive could there be other than pure lust? And yet, the pictures of favorable miscegenation shown by Ham and cited by pro-miscegenation preachers is always a Negro with an Aryan fox. Why is this? Has MTV triumphed? What is really at the bottom of this excitement? I will speculate a bit on this down below.

2. Mr. Ham and his colleagues make the analogy between dog breeds and the speciation of humanity from a common pair of parents (pp. 36-45). The differentiation in the case of humans came about by natural selection, they say, but the inter-breedability establishes that there is no racial norm. But carry the analogy through: if you had a nation of cocker spaniels, another of great Danes, and another of Labradors, might it not be well within the rights and natural desires of each of these “tribes” to preserve its distinctives? To forbid the dams to make themselves available to the dogs of the other breeds? What possible “biblical argument” could there be to say that inter-breeding must be permitted, if not encouraged? What could possibly be wrong with recognizing the great gifts inherited by your breed and wishing to preserve them?

The libertarian will have a ready answer: what each individual chooses, let it so be; no one dare object.

At bottom, I think the Christian miscegenists are libertarians to a far greater extent than they are aware. They really model humanity as a miscellaneous collection of individuals, with libertarian choice the highest value governing everything. Society is only a matter of voluntary association. Earlier I showed why this solution is inadequate.

3. Other analogies can be imagined. Consider forbidding your daughter from dating an inmate of a nut-house, for example. If tribe A has an IQ of 70, and tribe B has an IQ of 100, then would it not be insanity for tribe B to permit its daughters to marry into tribe A?

Yet this is exactly the case!

4. Not just the future look and character of one’s descendants, but the organization of society is threatened. The reason is easy to comprehend. There are three possibilities for the mulatto first-generation offspring of the inter-racial marriage. (1) They will bond to the mother’s tribe, (2) they will bond to the father’s tribe, or (3) they will become exemplars of tribeless society, continuing the free and libertarian mixing of their parents into the next generation. Either (1) or (2), continued for several generations, means the race of one of the parents is effectively renounced in favor of the other, and the inter-racial marriage proves to be a brief turbulence that settles back into one ethnic identity eventually. (3) is a view of society which, universalized, implies that the ethnic stock that forms the core of every nation is to be ignored; then government is, at most, a matter of geography, and even geography then becomes arbitrary. That is, “borders” no longer define the concrete land settled by a people.  If there is no bond of national blood, why should things be different just for hopping over an arbitrary border? Thus, there is a teleology of one-world government when one ponders this matter deeply. The Hamites consider an objection under this name (pp. 105-111) and poo-poo it, but without showing evidence that they have thought the matter through teleologically. Their analysis fails to consider the deeper issues involved in nationality, and thus this section is not worthy of further interaction.

The Hamites' dream couple -- provided they are both Christians or non-Christians

Why do the Hamites lust for Negroes to have their way with Aryan girls? For, inevitably, that is the picture that is given as Scenario #1 (see illustration on p. 92). The Bible certainly does not command this. We can only speculate.

1. The most charitable view would be to suppose that they pick the most aesthetically repulsive combination in order to set up an a fortiori for libertarian mixing, which model of humanity they really believe is taught by the Bible.

2. Perhaps it is a sign of simple capitulation to the memes and images imposed on us by our secular rulers for the last 40 years, both de jure and de facto: jewish propaganda through movies, starting with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and culminating in MTV; agitation through ADL, SPLC, and ACLU; and the rulings of revolutionary judges. The Stockholm syndrome is very real. The desire for praise and acceptance by those holding power leads to a double mind. The beaten dog not only wags his tail but really does desire acceptance by its abusive master. The busybody that brought complaint against me to the Board very clearly and explicitly indicated his fear of the ruling establishment: but it was a fear his conscience approved of, a fear that he did not blush to admit.

3. I don’t think we can rule out a motivation that would properly be designated as “racist” if that word has any meaning at all. Namely, perhaps they think the Negro can only be raised to civilization by raising his IQ and character through interbreeding. In that sense, they are willing, Christ-like, to sacrifice themselves for the sake of another. I believe it was Barth who said there is only one story: the Christ story. Perhaps they see the destiny of the Aryan to lay himself down in sacrifice for the sake of the other races, and specifically, for the Negro race.

4. Most sinister of all, could it be that there is a subtle belief that evangelism of the Negro in a serious, culture-changing way, will only take place by this means? Perhaps the enticement of White girls is the evangelistic trick they wish to hold out, replacing the magic shows, snake handling, and other gimmicks of huckster evangelists of a century ago?

These possibilities are not disjunctive. They all could be in play, feeding one another, supplementing the same grotesque monster. It is not biblical, though in their conceit they think it is.  It is messianism on man’s terms. These men have dedicated themselves to a cause that can only be identified as evil. If they persist, the only just fate for them will be exile to Africa.

We should hope for better from them: that they will come to their senses. Let us pray and hope so, before the gifts that God has distributed to humanity, organized into tribes, are washed away, never to be recovered again so far as what can be discerned humanly.

Because people groups have allegedly evolved separately, they are at different stages of evolution, and some people groups are less evolved. Thus, the other person may not be as fully human as you. This sort of thinking inspired Hitler in his quest to eliminate Jews and Gypsies and to establish the “master race.” Sadly, some Christians have been infected with racist thinking through the efforts on our culture of evolutionary indoctrination, that people of a different “color” are inferior because they are supposedly closer to the animals. (p. 78f.)

And, in case you missed it the first time,

Evolutionists like Hitler treated the Jews, Gypsies, and other groups as inferior, and therefore argued that they needed to be eliminated. (p. 166)

It is unfortunately necessary again to question Ham’s honesty. In the current sputtering shibboleths about Nazis, you are supposed to mention the persecution of homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses as well. Why does Ham “forget” to mention those groups? Why only Gypsies and Jews? Obviously, because Sodomites are not a racial group, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are not a racial group. (Perhaps it is also because his rhetoric would then find less sympathetic reception amongst his white conservative audience?) But this should have cued him in that his premises might be wrong. He needs a theory to account for the persecution of all the groups that were persecuted.

The “closer to the animals” argument is dubious as stated. Presumably, Ham believes that cattle are “inferior” to humans; yet this has not led him to desire that all the cattle of the earth should be wiped out. Of course we slaughter cattle, but this is different than “eliminating.” The history of man is full of mutual slaughter, and not necessarily based on a theory of inferiority. Indeed, probably it hardly ever is tied to a theory of inferiority.

Moreover, one can believe that some races are inferior to others based on any number of criteria having nothing to do with evolution, nor does such a belief need to entail hatred or a desire for genocide. One could believe that one’s mortal enemies were superior, and therefore had to be eliminated — kill or be killed as they say.

Note further that the desire for racial separation does not necessarily imply a sense of racial superiority, any more than separating the squabbling children is. Think: let it be that the Aryan is inferior to the other races. Fine: now can we have our own country? Indeed, if there is any legitimacy to desiring to see one’s tribe continue qua tribe into the future, then the desire for separation would only become stronger when said tribe is mingled with a superior and dominating rival tribe.

We can summarize the fallacious forms of Ham’s logic thusly:

• Belief in racial inferiority does not imply justification for genocide
• Belief in racial inferiority does not imply belief in evolution
• Desire for racial separation does not imply belief in racial inferiority
• Desire for racial separation does not imply belief in evolution

The Hamites have not thought this matter through carefully because, I suspect, their minds have been addled by the Nazi meme, which our rulers have deeply implanted in the minds of our people. Corrupted by our rulers’ meme, the Hamites in turn plant their own. The meme-planting intent of this passage is clear: if you want to live where you can raise your children far away from Negroes, then you are equivalent to a Nazi, acting like Hitler.

Whenever the H-card is played, one should unpack carefully. Why is the deliberate Judeo-bolshevik slaughter of millions of Ukrainians prior to the ascendancy of H never mentioned? That was surely racial hatred, but not necessarily based on evolution. On the other hand, there are several ways that Ham on Hitler re race is wrong, reflecting the analysis above:

1. H’s alleged belief in the primacy of the German and the relative inferiority of the Slav, Hun, and Mediterranean did not stop him from making friendly alliances with Croatia, Hungary, and Italy (not to mention Romania) against their common enemy, the Bolsheviks; and those allied nations fought valiantly at the side of the Germans.  (Slovakia too was on friendly terms, and had something equivalent to an SA of their own.)  Many Russian soldiers after capture volunteered to fight with the Germans against their communist rulers. (Roosevelt/Truman obeyed Stalin’s order to hand them over to the USSR after the war for execution — but I digress.)

2. If he had heard that the Slavs regarded their race as superior, I suspect H would have taken that with bemused humor. He would not have cared if you did not agree that the Aryan was superior. Indeed, he would probably respect you more if you held a similar view of your own race. Think of C. S. Lewis’ friends observing that the men of every nation believe their own women the most beautiful, when one of the old ones murmured “yes… but in our case, it is true.”

(Interesting trivia: H thought of the Japanese as the “Aryans of the Orient.”)

3. Nor was his desire to expel jews from Germany necessarily based on a belief that jews were inferior or sub-human in the sense that Ham implies. It was based on his conviction that jews were deleterious in their effect on the German people; and whether that pernicious effect was due to their being superior or inferior would be irrelevant to that conclusion, unless it should be that jewish superiority made separation even more urgent.

4. Why were other groups put in concentration camps, such as Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Sodomites? I cannot produce quotes, but it does not require much imagination to find a common denominator to make sense of such a policy: all of these groups are resistant to bonding tribally: they thus needed to be quarantined during the national emergency. All of this would make for an interesting discussion in its own right, but too much of a digression just here. The point is, that Ham’s pulling of the H-card is confused and probably exploitative of current political shibboleths; it cannot be marshaled to his thesis about evolution, or even race.

If quarantining a group believed to be potentially dangerous during a national emergency is so bad, why don’t the Hamites harp on the American segregating of Japanese-Americans during WW2 — which was unambiguously race-based. Why does poor old H always have to take the heat on this one? The answer is, that the American action was very clearly not related to a belief in evolution. It was based on the question of ethnic loyalty. The action may have been just or unjust — that would be the subject for a different essay. But it would reveal a nest of debatable issues that belie the Hamites’ charge of evolution, and place the discussion in a completely different framework.

5. We have made the point before, but it bears repeating in this new application: Hitler’s view that the Aryan needed to be preserved and separated from the Jew is a position that one could hold with or without evolution. The logic is simply absent when people make this assertion.

6. Doubtless, Hitler had a dynamic view of history, such that energetic peoples would tend to expand and sluggish ones contract.  Any pointy-headed academic might entertain such a hypothesis about history. No doubt, H desired his own people to be one of the energetic ones, not one of the sluggish ones. Given the hypothesis, that is certainly a rational view to have. It is compatible with either evolution or anti-evolution.

If it turns out that H believed in evolution in point of fact, would that prove Ham’s thesis? No it would not. It is the logical entailment that is wrong with Ham’s analysis.

People need to work up the courage to study that period in our people’s history; or perhaps just a study of critical thinking will suffice. After they do, cheap rhetorical tricks such as are sprinkled through this book will be enough by themselves to strip credibility from such authors. The Hitler treated by the Hamites is actually just a cartoon character created by Hollywood. That is why I say “the Hitler” in the title of this post. It is a stock character, to be dragged out on demand from the back-stage closet, like “the Mummy,” or “the Vampire.”

Now perhaps the Hamites will answer this analysis along these lines: even granting that the desire for racial separation is not logically dependent on a view of inferiors and superiors, and even if such a desire is possible with or without evolution — yet the escalation from separation to extermination (i.e. the “holocaust”) would only be possible on a view of superiority derived from evolution. Now leaving aside the fact that the “holocaust” story itself, as we have begun to document, seems to be patched together with even more baseless assertions and distortions than the Hamites can make in one short book, consider the logic of this move even granting the premise. First, such a view would be a misunderstanding of Darwinism. Darwinism speaks of the fittest surviving, not the “superior” as conceived of along logical, ethical, or teleological grounds. In other words, a Hitler that wished to exterminate a rival gang would not need to deduce a “right” to do so from some axiology of worth: the desire itself would be its own vindication or (upon loss) rebuttal. It is a misunderstanding to think that Darwinism permits a calculation of ethical right, or even a pragmatic right. The fittest survive, because those that survive are the fittest by definition. It has nothing to do with an apriori. Second, such a desire could be produced by other non-Christian worldviews with or without Darwinism being part of the package. One could believe, for example, that one’s own tribal god has created one’s tribe, or set it apart, and so ordained. In that case, Hitler’s view would be formally analogous to the ancient Hebrews’s genocide of the Canaanites, if it were the case that Jehovah were simply a tribal invention and not the true God. Again, such an attitude need not involve either a view of superiority or evolution. Finally, the last resort of the Hamite will probably be to say, that the execution of a genocide requires the cooperation of many persons, whose scruples would have to be overcome by some means or other. But if their scruples are based on Christian convictions, how would this be overcome by Hitler asserting Darwinism? The overcoming of scruples would need to take place by defeating Christian convictions by hook or by crook, and (a) this need not take place via Darwinism, and (b) the cynical Hitler-figure would not need himself to believe whatever subterfuge would be used to overcome the others’ scruples. And again (not to sound like a broken record), the agenda could just as well be pushed on the view of the right and exigencies of tribal survival as on the view of tribal inferiority or superiority.

One gets the feeling that Ham never tests his premises by the free variation of imagination. After a while, one starts to wonder if he is just cliché-monger, not a thinker at all. But if Ham merely passes along the usual “white lies” about Nazis, we cannot let the “Editor-in-chief” Jim Fletcher in his forward to the book off the hook so easily. Of that little piece of work, we must borrow the words of Mary McCarthy spoken originally about Lillian Hellman: Every word in it is a lie, including “and” and “the.” Consider just this one whopper:

Even the Japanese in World War II, to justify that nation’s expansionist aggression, had been told that they were the most “highly evolved” race on earth. After all, Europeans, with their longer arms and hairier chests, were clearly still closer to the ape, weren’t they? (p.13)

I seriously doubt that he can back up his quote with a published citation: I am calling your bluff, “Mr. Fletcher.” But perhaps he will find some Japanese somewhere that said that. Perhaps some over-heated rhetoric on either side may be excused on the mitigating circumstance of the heat of battle — on the level of the playground pugilist’s “your mother wears army boots.”

However, even the slightest acquaintance with the facts belies this assertion as a fair statement of the case: the expansion of Japan was into the territory of fellow Orientals, and they were allied with that nation, Germany, which is arch-European! Even the attack on “European” America was reluctantly undertaken due to the deliberate provocation of the Roosevelt administration, as “Mr. Fletcher” would have known if he had read even ten pages of history before getting up on his soap box.

Again, if he feels the need to take a cheap shot, why not pick on “us” rather than “them”? After the US government had goaded and tricked the Japanese into a war they did not desire, consider how “the Allies” treated them racially. Military commentator Fletcher Pratt “declared that the Japanese ‘can neither make good airplanes nor fly them well.’” (T. Fleming, The New Dealers’ War, p. 44) After Pearl Harbor, “an agitated General Douglas Macarthur swore they must have acquired Germans or some other white mercenaries to fly their planes.” (pp. 44-45)  “After the bombs fell, the paper’s cartoonist, Theodore Giesel, future beloved children’s book writer Dr. Seuss, drew a picture of a long column of slanty-eyed Japanese lining up to collect TNT at a house labeled ‘Honorable Fifth Column.’” (p. 110) “Pearl Buck risked her status as a best-selling author … in her 1943 novel, The Promise, about the British and Chinese fighting the Japanese in Burma. She depicted the British as infected with all but incurable racist attitudes, which led them to see Asians as subhuman, even when they were allies.” (p. 379) “In an official government film, Action at Anguar, issued in the spring of 1945 to support the seventh war-bond drive, footage showed Japanese soldiers being burned alive by flamethrowers while the narrator said: “By this time we had shot, blasted or cooked six hundred of the little apes.’” (p. 540)

A Christian should be doubly careful to be fair and just in his treatment of his enemies, knowing the proneness of human nature to self-deception. One feels cheap having to correct Ham and his colleagues on these matters: like having to prove that there were 10 cookies in the jar in the presence of the little liar that obviously stole one. The situation has gone beyond the passing on of falsehoods that are part of the received tradition taught in government schools. One can forgive someone that has not been corrected, for passing on the false idea that Lincoln waged the “Civil War” to end slavery. But here, we are dealing with a situation that has gone beyond that: people think they can actually make up any slander out of thin air and pass it on with impunity when dealing with Nazis.

Schlissel thinks one can lie when dealing with a Nazi: it is but a short step, and one which most published Americans evidently have taken, to think one can tell any lie about the Nazis. Ham et al. undoubtedly think that if these baseless assertions about Nazis turn out to be false, they are just little “white lies,” well justified by the circumstance. But John Murray showed convincingly that even inadvertent passing along of falsehoods involves one in sin: for God is Truth. This is a very serious matter. If people claiming to be Christians continue to do it after being corrected, the credibility of their profession will eventually need to be questioned.

These so-called “racial” characteristics that many think are major differences (skin color, eye shape, etc.) account for only 6 percent of this 0.2 percent variation, which amounts to a mere 0.012 percent difference genetically. (p. 54)

In passing, I raise a question as someone that knows next to nothing about genetics, but something about probability theory. One can only validly multiply the 6% and the 0.2% if the  underlying phenomena described by these variables are uncorrelated. But is it not likely that there is a high degree of correlation between the genetic basis of the races and that which “many think are major differences”? (And who approved the list of “major differences” before it was quantified?)  On the other hand, if they are not correlated, does this not raise the possibility that there is much more difference between the races hidden below the surface than that which “many think are major differences”? It is only a question: perhaps there is a good answer. Maybe Ham can be a little more explicit if he writes another edition. But on to the argument as such.

The problem is a common one encountered in Physics and Engineering: the difference between two large and similar numbers. The important signal might be tiny compared to another signal it is riding on: how to extract the important one? You would like to subtract the big signal — but the slightest error in its estimation causes a huge effect in the resulting (small) difference. Many scientists, mathematicians, and engineers have devoted their careers to this problem as it has surfaced in various applications.

Now, translate this problem into Ham’s terms. “The (big noisy signal plus the tiny signal of interest) only differs from the (big noisy signal by itself) by 0.012%; therefore, it is a matter of indifference which one we use.”

Presumably, a room full of atmospheric air plus “just a little” nitrogen is very, very similar, on a percentage basis, to another room with “just a little” cyanide gas added. But on another way of measuring, these mixtures are quite lethally different from each other.

Try this analogy: When the sun, earth, and Sirius are lined up, the difference between the distance from the earth to Sirius compared to the distance from the sun to Sirius is only 0.00018% (using 8.6 light years vs. 93 million miles.) Therefore, it is a matter of indifference if the earth were located at the center of the sun.

It reminds me of a discussion I had with a coworker years ago. He claimed that chimps and humans share (I can’t remember the exact number but something like) 96% of their genetic material in common. Therefore, he said, evolution is probably true, and we are really not much different from chimps. I answered, “on the contrary, humans and chimps are manifestly very different. Therefore, if everything hangs on genetic composition, that last 4% must be very significant. Indeed, as to everything important, that last 4% is everything.”

You see, it all depends on your starting presupposition. My coworker started with “genetic overlap” as determinative, and concluded we are very much like chimps. I started with the idea that we are very unlike chimps, and concluded that a particular quantity of genetic overlap must therefore not be very significant.

Let’s seize the bull by the horns even more tightly. Suppose scientists announced that our genetic overlap with chimps were 100%. Would you then throw in the towel and say, “there is no difference between chimps and humans”? Of course not. You would either say,

1. Scientists need to keep looking for the cause of the difference

- or -

2. The difference is something that cannot be detected by science, or at least by current science.

In other words, our knowledge of the difference between chimp and human is more foundational and certain than any deliverance of science. Only the crudest reductionist would take that deliverance as overthrowing what everyone can see with his own two eyes.

Everyone with two eyes can see the differences between Negroes and Aryans, and everyone not blinded by the hideous propaganda of our debased age can see very important differences. Skin color is the least of those differences. It goes to the bone. It goes to propensities; it goes to personality; it goes to preferences, and to intelligence.

If all that is explained by 0.012% of genetic material, then that 0.012% is very significant indeed! Or, there is something else going on here, something other than genes, more important than genes, that is passed on from one generation to the next.

Ham et al. show themselves to be crude reductionists.

Darwinian evolution was (and still is) inherently a racist philosophy, teaching that different groups of “races” of people evolved at different times and rates, so some groups are more like their ape-like ancestors than others. (51)

There is something dishonest about that statement. Darwinists routinely deny the very thing that Ham attributes to them. And indeed, when Darwinists make claims consistent with Ham, he is quick to jump on board with them:

Scientists today admit that, biologically, there really is only one race of humans. For instance, a scientist at the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta in 1997 stated, “race is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological reality.”  This person went on to say, “curiously enough, the idea comes very close to being of American manufacture. ” (52)

Let’s start with the “American manufacture” slur. It only takes a page before Ham forgets he endorsed that and goes on to approve the statement, “the most hideous example was provided by Hitler’s Germany” (53). Is it or is it not of American manufacture then? Does Ham listen to himself talking? The appeal to Hitler will need to be examined more closely in due time. For now, focus just on the opportunistic dishonesty in Ham’s use of sources. Within two pages, he both blames evolutionism as being inherently racist, and praises them for denying racism.

Though neither race nor racism is ever defined, very clearly Mr. Ham thinks racism has something to do with common vs. disjunctive origin. For, he concludes the long section (chap 1-4) on the genetic possibility that all men are descended from a single pair, “Now that we understand that the so-called ‘races’ in reality constitute just one race…”

But this is crazy. Many people that believe humanity is divided into races also believe that all men are descended from a single pair, and the vast majority of Christians that believe in the existence of races share that belief. Moreover, chronologists, genealogists and mappers of humanity developed a comprehensive theory on the distribution of the races of humanity long before evolution was believed by any but a few esoteric neo-Platonists here and there. Their material on genetic theory is interesting, but Ham et al. are tilting at windmills if they think this is telling against a belief that races exist.

One could be cute and point out that some evolutionists believe in a common ancestor with a vengeance — indeed, that all living things descend from the same single cell! So by Ham’s definition, evolutionists not only deny “races” among men, but would be forced to concede that men and apes are of the same race. And elephants, and beetles.

Let’s unpack Ham’s presupposition a little more. He seems to think that one belief about origins, “common descent,” leads to racial egalitarianism if not the denial that races even exist; while another, “multiple descent” leads to racism. Call the “common descent” belief S1 and the multiple-descent S2. So Ham thinks

S1 ==> egalitarianism or no races
S2 ==> racism

But in the course of time, S1 leads to S2, as Ham himself is at pains to point out. That is, he teaches that eventually commonly-descended humanity separated into isolated “people groups” which then developed racial characteristics on the basis of naturalistic survival of the fittest. On the one hand, S1 obtains: “…the so-called ‘races’ in reality constitute just one race,” and this because of common descent. On the other hand, segregation caused by the Babel dispersion led to diverse “people groups”:

Clearly, though, there are groups of people who have certain features (e.g. skin “color”) in common, which distinguish them from other groups. As stated earlier, we prefer to call these “people groups” rather than “races”. (57)

In other words, S2 resulted from S1 in the course of time. Thus,

S1 ==> S2 in the course of time.

From this, if Ham would pay attention, it follows that

S1 ==> racism in the course of time (if his second premise is true).

His thesis fails immediately. In other words, both the evolutionist and Mr. Ham believe in both single-descent and multiple descent. And if multiple-descent implies racism, then Ham’s model implies racism no less than the secular evolutionist’s does.

To rescue his thesis, he is probably going to have to introduce a magic time-scale: there was “enough time” to generate different “people groups” with quite different characteristics, but “not enough time” as that that could account for the superiority of one people group to another, or even, “differences” between them that are anything more than superficial.

Maybe so; but that is quite different from saying that single-origin versus “evolution” per se establishes his thesis. If he is going to hang everything on a magic time scale, let him say so plainly.

But the magic time scale will not lead to his conclusion either. His time scale is enough to explain the current racial differences, he says. And those differences are what they are. If they are such that one would conclude that one race is superior to another, it is entirely irrelevant what the time scale leading to those differences was.

The only point worth making with respect to evolutionists’ denial of evolutionary differences between the races is that they are obviously lying. Modern academia is all about funding, and you must be politically correct to get the funding. If evolution is true, then Africa is at least several hundred thousand years behind the evolutionary curve. Obviously. Anyone who denies this is either blind, inexperienced, or fundamentally dishonest. Salve your conscience by chalking it up to bad luck, if you wish — like the chronic “bad weather” explaining the poor harvests of the Soviet Union — but don’t deny the obvious.

Europeans that do deny it must think they are being humble and generous. They are not. They are despising the good gifts that have been showered on their own tribe. They are ingrates and prevaricators.

Now, a word of grace and hope needs to be extended to the African as well — and in due time I will make that point. But denying the plain facts of the current situation is hardly a basis for grace or hope. To say, in the teeth of all evidence,”have hope! you are really no different than any other tribe,”  is hardly a message of hope.

Faced with this fact, Ham will undoubtedly try to shift the focus from nature to nurture: the problem is “cultural,” not “racial.” But the evolutionist cannot do this so quickly. To deny “biology” in favor of “culture” is dishonest since for the evolutionist, culture is an aspect of evolution as well. Moreover, for both Ham and the evolutionist, the proof that there is no biological aspect to “culture” has not been made. What would such a proof look like? What could it look like? Even after hundreds of years simmering in a European-cultural pressure-cooker, Africans when left alone gradually revert back to music and mores that resemble Africa, not Europe. Africans create a distinctly African culture wherever they end up, even as Scandinavians create a typically Scandinavian culture in Minnesota. And this during a time that African-Americans overwhelmingly claim Christianity and Scandinavians have largely abandoned it. Where is the proof that there is not something genetic going on here? Christians need to get their heads out of the sand.

The evolutionists are clearly prevaricating for reasons of political correctness for the purpose of obtaining political respect and, above all, funding; Ham et al, unfortunately, show themselves committed more strongly to something other than the truth by the opportunistic way they now use, now abuse evolutionists, just as it suits their own politically-correct agenda. The obvious dishonesty of the evolutionists should have been pointed out. But Ham cannot do this, because he wants to join them when they make this lie.

By the time of Moses (about 2,500 years later), degenerative mistakes would have accumulated to such an extent in the human race that it would have been necessary for God to bring in the laws forbidding brother-sister (and close relative) marriage (Lev. 18-20). Also, there were plenty of people on the earth by now, so close relations did not have to marry. (p. 29)

The view here presented is the opposite of the traditional theological viewpoint represented for example by Dabney, who taught that the incest prohibition is part of the Moral Law, and that the first-generation coupling of siblings was an exception (Lectures in Systematic Theology, pp. 412f.). He takes note of the same genetic degeneration as Ham, but places it in the opposite causal relation to the law:

Man’s animal nature now utters its protest, by the deterioration and congenital infirmities, which it visits usually on the unfortunate children of these marriages within lawful degrees. (p. 413)

Apart from the modern insight into genetics, it is hard to see how natural reason would lead to the prohibition. Yet we find the incest taboo universally acknowledged, even in the most depraved of societies. It seems to be etched on the conscience of man even though, of all the “Moral Law,” the least susceptible to rational explanation. The Moral Law has its force because it is graven on the mind of man by direct divine revelation or implantation, so that man in his rebellious state, though he cannot obey it, finds himself accusing and excusing in terms of it (Rom 2:15).

For this reason, the caution flags should go up for Ham’s new theory. If Ham’s theory is correct, then the incest prohibition is not part of the eternal Moral Law, but is contingent on the fact of genetic mutation. At most, we could say that it is a circumstantial application of the Moral Law thou shalt not slay in its positive application of the preservation of life as applied in love for the next generation. If that is the case, then we could say that this law would be fulfilled even in the apparent breach, if the circumstance that defines it – genetic mutation – could be vouchsafed not to apply in a particular case.

Suppose, for example, that the science of genetics reached such a level of sophistication, that a brother and sister could submit genetic samples, and laboratory analysis could determine that none of their “bad genes” in their case would ever line up. Could they then marry, on the ground that the whole purpose of the incest prohibition, being circumstantial, did not apply in their circumstance?

I am inclined to think that this line of thought cannot be sustained.

1. The biblical prohibitions of consanguity include in-law marriage, such that the genetic argument would fail. This principle is summarized in the (original) Westminster Confession this way:

24.4 Marriage ought not to be within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity forbidden by the Word; nor can such incestuous marriages ever be made lawful by any law of man or consent of parties, so as those persons may live together as man and wife. The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own; nor the woman of her husband’s kindred nearer in blood than of her own. (emphasis added)

The American revision (used, for example, by the OPC) deletes that last sentence. However, it is hard to see how the original version can be avoided, because of this text:

Leviticus 20:19-21 And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister, nor of thy father’s sister: for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity. And if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

This is a big topic, and I don’t want to pretend to be able to give more than an amateurish “first word” on it. James Thornwell discusses the topic in connection with the McQueen case in his discussion of the General Assembly of 1847 (Works, vol. 4, pp. 488-494). Barry Waugh wrote his PhD dissertation discussing the issue at length, with a journal article summarizing the results. The topic is important and interesting, and we should take it up more thoroughly again in the future.

But in any case, it is clear that Moses at any rate could not have conceived of his giving the laws pertaining to incest from the motivation described by Ham, since the Mosaic law includes affinity by marriage, where the genetic argument would not have any force. It is interesting that just at this point, Moses emphasizes that the couple must be separated and thus remain childless – the very topic in which the genetic argument has force; yet here, that is clearly not in view.

2. If the brother/sister argument from genetics has some plausibility, would Ham extend the principle even to mother/son, father/daughter relations? There would be no prohibition apart from the problem of genetic mutation? It staggers the imagination.

3. A serious objection to Ham’s way of thinking here is the implied naturalistic perspective. It is as if God unleashes a tornado that he must now figure out how to respond to. He causes the principle of genetic mutation as a consequence of his own curse, but now that this cat is out of the bag, he must find a way to leash it in. Thus, God’s orientation to physical law is the same as ours: he, just like us, must respond to it, find ways around it. It would be “necessary for God to bring in the laws”; fortunately, He did not have to dance around one potential constraint, for “there were plenty of people on the earth by now, so close relations did not have to marry.”

The same mistake was made in the last generation, when it was often claimed that the prohibition of pork as unclean was God’s “response” to the higher disease-carrying proclivity of swine. It was actually a Methodist friend of mine that pointed out at the time that the exact opposite is far more likely the case: God having declared the pig unclean, he then afflicted it with disease in consequence thereof.

Some speculation is inescapable; but my Methodist friend’s is by far the more theologically sound speculation. The other one places God in a wrapper of darkness, in which he must probe and discover and respond. He creates a monster that he must now figure out how to tame. Far better to say that the pig’s design plan included certain characteristics that would intentionally ratify its function as a symbol of the unclean during that stage of redemptive history. Far better to say that genetic mutation was introduced as a punishment for violation of the incest prohibition: though we cannot deduce this as a church dogma.

Though the incest discussion is a minor one in the scope of Ham’s dissertation, it is telling nonetheless. A poisonous naturalism pervades all of his arguments, seen particularly clearly here.  There is a covenantal way to account for genetic defects and swine parasites, and there is the naturalistic way. Overcoming the naturalistic perspective is the genius of a truly Christian exposition. Like a besetting sin, it must be re-overcome again and again.

It is easy to see how appealing Ham’s Mulatto Model of humanity would be to libertarians and libertines. Blood relation differentiated into races vanishes next to the “really important” action of bloodless Individuals marrying and giving in marriage according to individual impulses, and guided by no principle above the Individual except being “equally yoked” according to propositional belief. The City of God/City of Man becomes the only relevant collective having covenantal, eschatological ramifications.

Some reasons to doubt the libertarian solution

1. It will be helpful to refer to the table outlining the racial possibilities as to creation intent in the previous article.  From the human perspective, we could say that the libertarian escape route is simply Column A in its entirety, i.e. a view that does not see a racial telos of history and is indifferent to origin. But what if free choice led to racial differentiation? What if the “Aryans” in Adam and Eve’s brood freely tended to prefer fellow Aryans in their choice of marriage partners, and Negroes Negroes? The idea that “opposites attract” is a simplistic formula that does not square with reality. The Libertarian typically concedes that it is fine if free choice led (as it appears to have) to differentiated, stable racial stocks, but qualifies: as long as no one says it is wrong to go out of that stock for marriage. It would be wrong to say it were wrong, or to discriminate in awarding employment or advancement, place of residence, etc.

The problem is that right from the outset, we would see typology emerging from non-teleological origin, brought about by autonomous human choice decoupled from divine intent. The table of nations, the genealogies, the whole story of humanity in the Bible is all an accident of Libertarian choice not intended by God in creation.

Such a view is a sub-Christian view of God’s Will. A Christian social theory must make sense from both the human and divine perspective. It strains credulity to think that that rapidly-diversifying emergence of clans along “racial” lines would as it were have taken God by surprise – that that outcome would not reflect the divine intent in making Adam and Eve with such diverse potentiality.

We could escape this result by supposing that free choice leading to racial diversification were the means used to execute God’s creation decree. But that would throw the creation intent back to column B, negating Ham’s racial neutrality once again.

2. For Christian libertarians, typically the only dynamic to history is the conflict and struggle between the city of God and the city of Man; all else is governed by purely individual choice restricted only by the law of God.

These “cities” are collectives: Christian libertarianism cannot avoid loyalty to at least one collective. However, notice that the dynamic of the “cities” (and typically, the sword-wielding State as well) is a sub-lapsarian duality: it is a result of the Fall. Thus, the one collective (or two, if the State is also included) having some authority over the adult Individual was brought about by the Fall, and is not part of the intent of creation as such. It is odd that history has no dynamic apart from Individual choice, until and if the Fall should take place.

The Creation/Fall/Redemption schema of history teaches that redemption restores that which was lost in the Fall, with added richness. But the main collective of the Libertarian did not exist before the Fall. How will they fit that into the schema?

Instead, we should say that history post-Fall reflects what history would have been had their been no Fall, but now under a curse. Failing to worship Jehovah is sin; racial diversity is not sin.

3.  The deepest intent of the theonomic miscegenation defenders seems to be to guard against declaring anything as a sin that is not defined as such in a commandment. They are “okay” with having a preference for one’s own race, provided one does not forbid others. But does not their typical “preference” — they “just happen” to “prefer” that their own daughters marry white boys — go against their racial ideal of creation? On their view, should not the table of nations be seen as a deviation from divine intent, which should be positively resisted? They need to reflect on creation ordinance in view of these considerations. If the divine intent were humanity-as-mulatto, would it not be sinful even to prefer marrying within one’s own racial identity? Should not that which produces mulattoes be advocated as the norm? Once the Christian Libertarians start to think more biblically, their recourse to the preference vs. sin distinction may actually backfire on them.

4. Under Christian libertarianism, the only role for authority of any kind seems to be to regurgitate the law of God. The “theonomic” men on a Board that I dealt with actually were forced to admit that if a father or magistrate forbade miscegenation, their children or subjects would be free to disobey such an order, because they do not see how such a prohibition is contained in a specific law of God. In other words, authority equals “correct exposition of the law of God.”

Authorities and fathers on this view only have authority to the extent that they are restating the law of God given in precepts — they are merely expounders of the law of God to those that are less knowledgeable therein. Their subjects can always do what they want to do if they are convinced that there is not a divine precept specifically forbidding the behavior.

If the subject always has the right to decide that a command is “not a reflection of a law of God,” this really means that there are no authorities properly speaking. “Authorities” so-called become, at best, only persons more likely to know the law of God. Respecting authority, on the typical theonomic-libertarian model, amounts to consulting persons likely to know the law of God. Leaving aside the fact that lawful authorities in reality are often clueless as to the law of God, this view vitiates any concept of authority. It is just Libertarianism and the raw Individual before God masquerading as a biblical social theory.

5. Wisdom is a major theme of Scripture. Ordinarily, the younger submit to the older because the older ordinarily have greater wisdom. There is not always a precept explaining wisdom. Yet, is it not sin to act against wisdom? On the theonomic-libertarian view, a computer containing all the precepts, and which upon inputting a “circumstance” would print out all the applicable verses, would be as wise as any wise man could ever be.

6. Does Scripture countenance obedience to patriarchal authority that commands “adiaphora” i.e. that is outside that which is commanded by Scripture? If we can find even one such example in Scripture, it will be enough to refute this so-called “biblical” social theory of theonomic Libertarianism. And indeed, we do find an example.

The Rechabites were a tribe whose ancestral head had commanded his descendants to live in tents and not to drink wine, nor even to own vineyards.

But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever: Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers. Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he hath charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daughters. (Jer 35:6-8)

This example is particularly interesting, because libertarian theonomists take particular delight in promulgating that wine-drinking is adiaphora, and not prohibited by God’s law. They also are inclined to live in houses, not tents. But Jeremiah praises the Rechabites, contrasting their faithfulness to the rebelliousness of the people of Judah:

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will ye not receive instruction to hearken to my words? saith the LORD. The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are performed; for unto this day they drink none, but obey their father’s commandment: notwithstanding I have spoken unto you, rising early and speaking; but ye hearkened not unto me. (Jer 35:13-14)

The Board men thought they were principled theonomists, but in the end, their theory was simply plain old Libertarianism, lightly seasoned with desultory appeals to Scripture. The motif is deeply embedded in the thinking of Christians in “our circles.” Overthrowing it will not be quick work.

But if libertarianism is false, then on what basis will Ham be able to say that parents and tribal leaders may not steer marriages away from the inter-racial, or employ various other criteria that might be deemed important?

As Ham is at pains to point out, a pair of mulattos can generate children exhibiting a whole range of racial characteristics. This is how he explains the eventual divergence of humanity into races. Adam and Eve would have had a brood of children including Negroes, Aryans, and other Mulattos (I am simplifying the model to make the discussion tractable). Free intermarriage leading to an ongoing mulatto mixing-bowl continued until Babel (p. 69). After Babel, groups separated from each other based on language (p. 71). Initially, each group had the full spectrum of racial characteristics, including the mulatto base stock. Then, survival of the fittest sifted out the non-optimal traits from each “people-group” according to climate and geography (pp. 71-73).

The first question Ham’s Mulatto Model raises is what the divine creation intent of that diversity would be for history, looking forward in time from the moment of creation. The instability of the genetic reproduction should either be maintained through history, or accommodated. If the divine intent in creation were (1A) to maintain the “humanity as mulatto” model, then it would have been incumbent on the offspring to seek out such mates as would make that likely — that is, the Aryan children should actually seek out and prefer the Negro children of the mulatto couple; while the mulatto children could mate with other mulatto children. Otherwise, there would be a tendency toward racial sifting and refinement, leading to the separations that we in fact see today, which by hypothesis is counter to the creation intent.

On the other hand, suppose the creation intent of Adam and Eve as mulattos was (1B) to look forward to a gradual historical diversification, in which the racial diversity would serve as a refractive rainbow-creating medium to reveal the glory of God in its diversity-in-unity. This model has intuitive appeal since it would give a telos to the genetic differentiation of humanity analogous to the diversification of gifts and callings; it would do so in terms of the Trinitarian unity-in-diversity principle; and would apply the organizing principle of the glory of God, which can be more fully reflected from many facets. See my colleague’s speculation on how racial diversity could be carried out eschatologically (even though that reflection does not presuppose the Mulatto Model).

Unfortunately, Ham excludes the B variant explicitly. We mention it only as a logical possibility for rescuing his model.

If we call Ham’s Mulatto view model #1, consider the opposite model, #2, whereby Adam and Eve were of one of the sifted, refined races such as we see today, contrary to Ham’s proposal. In that case, the racial diversity that ensued would have been brought about by providential changes in time. Whether such changes should be classified as “mutations” or something else, would need to be debated by geneticists and philosophers. That is not important here, so much as the decision, would the changes fall under the category of chance or covenant? By chance I do not of course mean a view of ultimate randomness, but rather, a manifestation of the decree of God that is ethically neutral as it were. In this view, the question then is, is the historic diversification of humanity from a primeval pure form, a manifestation of (2A) an ethically-neutral, “random” throwing of the dice, or (2B) under the rubric of covenant, governed by blessings and curses?

The table presents the four views in their 2×2 structure. Row 1 represents “Adam and Eve as mulattos” view, and Row 2 represents “Adam and Eve as a telic (i.e. stable, planned, desirable) race.” Column (A) represents subsequent history as value-free or non-eschatological, while column B represents history as value-laden, teleological, or eschatological.

We can summarize the problems using the table to aid in organization:

•    The (A) column (value-free history) is counter to the warp and woof of Scripture. In general, Ham’s book does not entertain a view of Providence characterized by blessing and cursing. Yes, there is plenty of curse (pp. 27, 29, 31, 36, 44) but no blessing, and no historical coloring of the curse-motif: it is all Fall. There is no common grace within Providence, nor specific curse that might differentiate the “people groups.”  The “curse” is simply the new “natural law” of genetic mutation and natural selection. But Scripture presents the history-producing aspects of creaturely reality as ethically and covenantally charged, and overlaid with sovereign grace. Ham’s view of history is homomorphic with a naturalistic view.

•    The Ham model (Row 1) sets up a pattern of development that is in stark contrast to the creation principle of like begetting like (“each after its kind,” Gen 1:11,12,21,24,25). Birds beget “birds of a feather,” not all kinds of different colored birds. Humanity’s basic look and sound would be unstable in contrast to all the other species.

•    Which came first, the chicken or the egg? the tree or the seed? How you answer that in large part reveals whether you are a creationist or evolutionist in the bones. The purpose of the chicken is not merely to produce eggs, but the purpose of the egg is only to produce chickens. There is an asymmetry. Creation breaks the apparent symmetry and establishes the teleology of type by putting the chicken, and the tree, first in time, before the egg or seed. But this creation principle is disrupted by the mulatto model (row 1). The mulatto is genetically unto something else, not an end in itself.

•    More specifically the 1A version (perpetual mixing-bowl telos) means that the mulatto start is potentiality that is never fulfilled. Its inherent power of diversity is never exemplified fully.

•    Likewise, the 1B version (mulatto start unto the end of racial diversity) means that the mulatto start is potentiality that is not fulfillable except in something other than what it is. This would be different than every other pattern we see in Creation.

•    2a has, in addition to its anti-covenantalism, a conceptual problem: Even if some genetic mutation were governed by the category of chance, yet how could the outcomes be regarded as value-neutral? Is an IQ of 120 of equal value to 80? Is a tribe that produces all eye- and hair-colors equal to one that can produce only one? Is a tribe that can grow enough food to export equal to one that ceteris paribus cannot grow enough for itself?

Though the (1b) form of their model is more appealing than (1a), note also it does not support their agenda of favoring miscegenation. For, if racial refinement and diversification were the creation intent, then it would be natural and normative for fathers or tribesmen to resist an amalgamation that ends the refinement and moves back toward the generic mulatto. The teeth would be taken out of Ham’s acceptance of miscegenation. To put it bluntly, anti-miscegenation would be a creation mandate. Moreover, as people spread out over the earth and developed individuated cultures, it would be natural to do so on ethnic lines. The citizen/alien distinction would be largely coterminous with “race.” Dialects would develop on ethnic lines.  In short, history would develop exactly as we see that it in fact has developed and this would be ethically normal on the (B) variant of the model.

Striking out the rejected possibilities from the discussion to this point, we are left with 2B as the only theologically-sound possibility. Note that this view also leads to the unpacking of history as outlined in the previous paragraph, but does so in terms of covenant, in terms of blessing and cursing, and common grace that may be distributed equally or unequally, according to God’s will.

Where did Ham go wrong here? I submit it was a failure to think theologically in two main areas. (1) The eschatology of his racial model. Ham has painted himself into an embarrassing corner, as unpacked above. (2) The relation of science and creation. Creation is a necessary presupposition for the possibility of science, but creation is itself opaque to science. The same comment applies to Providence when it reflects free sovereign choice. It is interesting that the authors conceive Babel to be a miraculous creation of languages – which would therefore not be subject to Grimm’s Laws or any other linguistic insight – but they cannot entertain that the genetic dispersion might have been of such origin as well – and thus not subject to ordinary genetic research.

At the end of the day, Ham’s worldview is thoroughly naturalistic. Not surprisingly, “nature red in tooth and claw” in the form of survival of the fittest governs his view of the emergence of races, not God’s loving Providence.

As covenantal thinkers, we are left with the (B) column in any case, and probably 2B. Unfortunately for Ham’s thesis, regardless of which row governed by (B) is lighted upon, it would not lead to a “race-neutral” outlook.

But perhaps Ham’s party will attempt to escape between the horns of the dilemma I have presented by recourse to Christian libertarianism: individual freedom governed by covenantal categories that do not ever apply to collectives. Perhaps the divine intent in creating a mulatto couple was to enable the exhibition of maximum freedom of the individual in tribe-less autonomy, governed only by conformity to specified precepts, and to be judged in individual eschatology at the end of history. Examining that outlet will be the burden of the next section.

The first category (chap 1-4) undertakes to show how in view of the science of genetics, it could be that the vast racial diversity of mankind can be explained in view of a single starting pair of parents (Adam and Eve) and could do so in a relatively short period, on the order of a thousand years. To jump to the punch line: Adam and Eve must have been mulattos. A simplified model of genetics is explained to show how the various distinguishing marks of the races could emerge naturally, and quickly, by separation into groups containing a subset of the genetic pool. The analogy is made to selective breeding of dogs from the common genus that includes wolves.

From this, the authors conclude that there are no races. Racism is based on the false view that races exist.

Since race does not exist, any view that presupposes that it does is not just erroneous but probably involves sin such as acceptance of evolution, or pride.

The second category (chap 5-7) continues the attack with shorter arguments from Scripture, focusing on the question of inter-racial marriage. Scripture gives a criterion for marriage that is color-blind, and teaches that inter-racial marriage is not sinful by virtue of the example of Rahab and Ruth in the genealogy of Christ, and the marriage of Moses. The curse on Ham or Canaan is not allowed to be invoked in this regard either.

The third section (chap 8-10) contains appeals to emotions — or perhaps more fairly, one should say, to moral intuition — in the story of some Pygmies and other anecdotes. This section adds color but need not be interacted with as to substance.

The remainder of this review discusses the most important specific arguments critically, gathered under thematic rubrics. These are listed here, and will be turned into hyper-links as each section is discussed — coming soon.

• Adam and Eve as Mulattos
• The reason for the incest prohibition
• Racism and Evolution
• Does Scripture deny the existence of Race?
• Racism and the H-word
• The “minor” extent of genetic difference
• Miscegenation
• Rahab, Ruth and the genealogy of Christ
• Moses married a Negress?
• Concluding remarks

Ken Ham, Carl Wieland, Don Batten. One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism (Green Forest, AR: Master) 1999